Believe it or not, I haven’t forgotten about my blog… There hasn’t been any publically posted material in a while, mostly because I find myself venting and ranting and they really shouldn’t be public. So, nothing for the viewers. In the meantime, I’m trying to change some of my rants into publically available reading. I’m working on a massive “Banking ettiquitte 101″ post on the basics people need to know when entering a bank (like filling out deposit tickets, the basics of check cashing, etc). I also don’t believe in ranting about my coworkers in public, so you’ll never see that here.

On a totally other random note, I’ve been playing around a little with my photoshop, and made some more fandom buttons!! I’ve added another 25 to my page (found here) including Ever After, LotR and NCIS. Some turned out well, some were just okay, but what the heck…

i’ll also have to come back and tell you how horrendous my sister’s flight from the UK back to the US went so soon after the terrorist threat…. it was bad… very very bad.

anyways… *sigh*

Do you dare IM Me?::


lazy… just layin back and relaxin

Well, I spent a good part of thursday/friday creating a credits page, only for it to really just suck. It was just bad… bad design, cheap easy graphics, and it didn’t even seem to work well in all browsers. So today, I decided to redo it, and redo it right. So, I did it right… it went from an ugly blue based page to a pale pink/maroon design which at least is on par with secondary pages. Unfortunately, because I am trying to support two, and possibly more, layouts right now, I didn’t want to just focus on one design and create each page to match. On the other hand, I didn’t want to have to create the same page multiple times, so at least for now, all the ajoining pages are independent of the theme on the site… I might go back and redo the fandom buttons page and spruce it up a bit since it too is a bit shoddy. I can definately be improved, and it is not my best work… you might be actually looking at my best work right now *G*.

Do you dare IM Me?::


bored and listless

My television is currently diverting my attention with::
Head Over Heels

its now 4:35 in the morning, and I’m still wide awake… at this point its more dangerous for my career to fall asleep (with which I will most likely sleep through my alarm and miss work entirely) than to stay up, suck down a couple of diet dr. peppers and start the morning with a caffeine high… I’ll sleep well Monday night though! I’ve also watched Persuasion twice now and I cannot watch it again (only because watching it three times in a row is just a little wierd, even for me…)

While keeping myself awake, I’ve solved another dilemma on the blog design!! On the sidebar, I had all links to a rollover icon system, but as you notice, I’m starting to put friends on the side, and i didn’t want rollover icons in front of graphic links (it just looked too strange, and you don’t need two graphics for a link…) I also didn’t like the link system that WordPress has for friends, as many of my friends are on multiple sites, and by linking each separately, it would take up about three times the space it already will take up once I complete it. Slowly I am beginning to get a really good grasp of the basic coding behind the WordPress scheme and the themes I’m working with… go me!

mehness… now I’m starting to feel tired… thank goodness i’m not due in till nearly nine!

Do you dare IM Me?::


awake… but not for long…

Well, I should have been in bed hours ago *three as a matter of fact* and I did absolutely nothing I needed to do *like laundry* but I do feel a great sense in accomplishment, even if it is as trivial as working on my blog. *sigh* I am really hoping that the work I am putting into this will put me back in the mood to blog as I used to. Not being on a community site does have its disadvantages. I am much less likely to be read here by random strangers than on LJ. But i have at least made some headway there. I have set up a syndication account on LJ for this blog, Samantha’s Musings on LJ. Friending this account will add everything I put up here onto your friends page. I have also mastered the use of avatars by pasting a simple line of code at the beginning of each code and choosing which one from a graphical display on my write post page, of which at least two hours were dedicated to making this. I wasn’t sure I actually was going to finish it tonight, but I did! Not that anyone else will ever see, but it is a big thing for me from the page I am viewing right now. I’ve also tweaked the last bit I can think of right off the bat, like linking the samanthahowe.net at the top of the menubar to the main page of my website and the ridding of empty space where i didn’t want it. I still have work to do on the sidebar, but in terms of graphic design, I am done, and pleased with it. *sigh* It is now one in the morning… thank goodness I don’t have to be at work until 8:45 (although I’m willing to bet I’ll be there by 8:15).
In terms of work, its been a bit trying this past week, as I was moved from one station to another. The benefit is that now I have a Teller Cash Dispenser at my station, which means that even though I have the highest accuracy in the bank, I don’t have to count down and double count money going out of my drawer as much (which when a customer asks for 50 one dollar bills, it really does help.) The downfall is that the TCD takes up about a third of the station, and so I lose a significant portion of space I was accustomed to, including two drawers and a cabinet, of which I now have none. So, I stayed late on Saturday while the bank was holding a homeownership workshop and rearranged my new station to accomodate the loss of 1/3 of my space and the need to move everything over. According to Laura (my next station neighbor) I am the only one who could have so thoroughly rearranged and organized the station, including completely rearranging the computer there as well. I am a wee bit proud of that as well.
Well, This is it for the evening, as I still have to take a shower before going to bed… but I will not disallow myself the chance to write again if the need arises

Do you dare IM Me?::


accomplished, and sadly, not tired enough for the time…

My television is currently diverting my attention with::
Persuasion~Amanda Root

Well, I did it… I changed the theme around so everyone can enjoy something! Behold the newest theme, Technicolor Checkers! It took me the better part of today *being Sunday* to conceive of it and put it together, and even then what I originally conceived ended out a bit differently… I am actually quite proud of the checkered background, as that took me nearly three hours to get it just right, and I did get a couple other variations that turned out well too. But over all I’m pleased with it… Even though now the two themes are both vibrant, one is much more laid back, and the other a little more seventies flowerchild. I have also succeeded in setting up a change theme element on the sidebar for those of you with a Macintosh to view the Pink Explosion, my original theme. This also makes it easier to add more themes in the future just by adding a link to each sidebar… The one thing I would still like to work on is setting up a more uniform sidebar page so that I can just update one rather than two (or three or more as I add themes…) but that might be a future endeavor…

Do you dare IM Me?::


pleased indeed *g*

My television is currently diverting my attention with::
The Longest Yard~Adam Sandler, Chris Rock

Well, about as soon as I finished my layout to my own particular happiness, I realized that the pretty pink only really works in the Apple Browser Safari. In Safari, it comes out exactly as I had built it in photoshop. But, it comes out more purpley in firefox, netscape, and IE. It is rather heartcrushing really, considering I had spent probably the best of my creative insight on creating this one and I’m immensely happy how it turned out in Safari. So now I am charged with the task of building a new layout that is identical in all browsers. But I don’t necessarily want to get rid of this current one, because it looks sooo wonderful!! (well, it looks wonderful to me and anyone else on a Mac) So I think I also want to figure out a way of having people choose which layout they want (I know it can be done, I just have to work it out myself) but alas, my muse has left me once more… I’m completely undecided on what I want to do for the layout. *cries*
anyhoo, I have to be off to work, in like six minutes, and I’m not dressed yet for it…

Do you dare IM Me?::


crappy… in so many ways… /guttermind

What I am going deaf listening to::
Across the Stars (Love Theme from the Prequel Trilogy of Star Wars)

long story short, great weekend at AMUN spring retreat, not nearly long enough. I really don’t want to deal with the crap going on at work right now… so much damned created drama… its really sometimes worse than the internet. I planned to go to bed around ten pm, and its now seven minutes till one in the morning… and what have I to show for it, you ask?? Quite a few actually… If you look to your right, I’ve significantly added to the sidebar, including randomized fandom buttons o’pride and my favorite photographs, taken by my very own self. I have yet to set up a full page of fandom buttons o’pride, but first I must decide on what I would want it to say, like actually explaining each button, or whether to let the readers figure it out on their own or stay stuck forever on it…. *muahahaha*
*humnsigh*

Do you dare IM Me?::

drained… physically and emotionally from my job…

What I am going deaf listening to::
the deafening pressing of laptop keyboard keys… especially with not a single sound otherwise in the room…

Just for me…
What I want to work on (in no particular order):

1. Adding userpics to my entries
2. updating sidebar with the following:

• quick info about me
• contact information
• Last 5: books, movies
• redo page for friends and mates
• random fandombutton with link to full page
• link to credits
• link to pages I make or other parts of the website
• quotes of the moment
• Latest pictures thumbnail
• Random picture thumbnail with link to photography.samanthahowe.net

3. Pages on books, movies, and fandombuttons/icons
4. update one book a day, and begin rudimentary movie page.
5. create credit page
6. work on photography portfolio page
7. create rss feed on lj there from blogging.samanthahowe.net

One of the things I loved best about livejournal was the ability to easily insert custom moodsets. There was one in particular I fell in love with, the LotR Redux moodset, created by Proverbial Icon which featured the characters from the Lord of the Rings Movies. The expressions she caught are sometimes the best I’ve ever seen. I’ve especially enjoyed using them because the images, while created for a specific emotion, can just as easily show another quite accurately. On my Wordpress code base, they allow for custom fields to be created, but to use them, it required changing code on a core important page. While I can easily read code and usually make sense of what it is saying, I cannot always manipulate code as easily, let alone create it or repair it should i inadvertantly damage the code itself. So, I changed another page of code. Rather than change a page that directly shows the postings publically to readers, I changed the page I see now, the page where I write my posts. I’ve coded in the HTML for easy copy/paste into each of my posts, and even included a visual reference to each of the moods. I am a bit pleased with myself on my accomplishment.

Next on my list?? Working on userpics. I did love those too on LJ, and should be able to similarly integrate them into my journal here at my permanent home, samanthahowe.net.

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Do you dare IM Me?::


very pleased indeed at my creativity and accomplishment!

My television is currently diverting my attention with::
Underworld: Evolution ~ Kate Beckensale ()

What I am enriching my mind with::
Shadow of the Giant ~ Orson Scott Card ~ Ender Saga ~ (Audiobook) ()

A bit of tweaking, a bit of php code changes, and a good working beginning layout is complete. I may choose to tweak it a bit more, but largely the color/design scheme is complete. The next stage is my sidebar. I love sidebars full of tidbits and pieces. But too much information can become burdensome, hence the creation of “pages” as you can see on the side: mini-blogs on books and films and other day to day things i keep myself entertained in. My first project there is my reading listing, and followed up with films… when you have worked at both Blockbuster and a book store, you’ll know my love for them. I’m also a big fan of lists… be warned of my lists…. *muahhahah*. I will also shortly open this link to other readers, to open my blog up once more to the public. *sigh* I do hope that I can once again find the love of blogging I had before I lost my livejournal…